


Poor Unfortunate Souls

by prissygirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Complete, F/M, One Shot, Rumbelle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3242489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prissygirl/pseuds/prissygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Storybrooke AU: Ursula has been Mr. Gold’s assistant for years, but she’s never seen him fall for anyone until he meets the town librarian, Belle French.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poor Unfortunate Souls

“He couldn’t have died at a worse time.”

Mr. Gold stood in front of his pawnshop and frowned at the hearse as it drove past him and down Main Street. His assistant, Ursula, gave him a disapproving look.

“We really have to work on your manners,” she said. “You’re not supposed to say things like that out loud.”

Gold snorted, arching an eyebrow at her. “If I didn’t respect Moe French when he was alive, I don’t see the point in respecting him now that he’s dead.”

He turned back to the road. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go attend to some business at the library.”

“Ah, crashing a funeral reception,” Ursula said. “Very shrewd of you. No sense waiting for the corpse to cool, right boss?”

He scowled at her, but didn’t reply. Instead, he glanced both ways and began crossing the street, his gold-tipped cane swinging out in front of him with each step. Ursula sighed and turned back towards the shop. She had worked for Gold long enough to know that there was no changing his mind once he was set on a particular course of action.

She felt a brief moment of pity for the young woman whose mourning he was about to impose upon. Then she let it pass. Miss French was no one special to her, after all.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Ursula was surprised when Mr. Gold finally came back to the pawn shop, a full hour after she had expected him. He usually kept his dealings short and to the point.

What she found even more unusual was a small smile that kept tugging at the corner of his mouth. To anyone who didn’t know him very well, his expression wouldn’t have looked any different. But Ursula had known him long enough to pick up on the minutest change.

“Everything okay with the French girl?” she asked, keeping her voice neutral and her eyes on the inventory she had been cataloguing.

“Perfectly fine,” Gold said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him glance out the window towards the library. “More than fine actually.”

He had said the last comment so quietly that Ursula wasn’t sure if she was meant to have heard it or not.  The smile was hovering at the edge of his lips again and it was starting to unsettle her.

Mr. Gold didn’t smile. On the rare occasion that a somewhat toothy expression passed over his face, it was usually while he was threatening to evict someone. Ursula thought it was probably the way a shark smiled when he sensed a wounded seal nearby.

It was hardly a nice smile, but it was what she was used to. Ursula liked the expected. She liked working for Gold because he was dependable. He was cold and unemotional – apart from his occasional temper tantrums – and he was steadfast in his behaviors.

He was currently gazing out the window like a lovesick teenager.

“Mr. Gold?”

He snapped out of whatever fantasy world he had just been in. She half-suspected he was prancing about a flowery meadow with puppies, based on the look that had been on his face but a moment ago.

“What?” He seemed slightly disoriented.

“Do you want me to start drawing up the paperwork for Miss French?” Ursula started walking toward the computer, which they kept in the backroom with the rest of their files. “I’m sure you’ll want her to sign the new payment plan as soon as possible.”

“N-n-no, that’s not necessary.”

She froze in the doorframe and turned. The curtain smacked her lightly in the face and she batted it away. Before she could speak, he continued.

“What I mean is, I’ll take care of it myself.” Gold nodded, as if trying to assure himself of his own words. “In fact, I’ll take it to her when I make my rounds Wednesday.”

 His voice was hesitant and unsure, lacking his usual commanding air. Ursula just stared at him.

“You’re going to deliver it to her yourself?” She didn’t even try to mask the surprise in her voice.

Gold never bothered himself with delivering papers in person. Once he put the fear of God into whoever his current victim was, he usually let Ursula deal with the paperwork. It was hardly her favorite part of her job – though she admittedly did like seeing certain members of Storybrooke squirm – but she didn’t like him messing with a system that had worked for them both for all these years.

Then again, he was her boss. She didn’t really have a say in the matter.

Ursula nodded and went back to the inventory. “Whatever you say, boss.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

The next several weeks passed by fairly normally. Ursula and Mr. Gold went about their duties, keeping both the store and the majority of the rental properties in town in order. If Gold was a bit more absent-minded than usual and took to glancing out the window at the library on occasion, Ursula didn’t mention it.

She also didn’t say anything when she noticed that he began taking longer lunch breaks once or twice a week. He always seemed to be in high spirits when he finally wandered back to the shop, a spring in his step that hadn’t been there earlier in the day.

Ursula had her suspicions, of course. But the whole idea seemed ridiculous. Gold wasn’t a man to develop a schoolboy crush.

At least, that’s what Ursula had thought until she saw it with her own eyes.

It was just a run of the mill Tuesday, about a month after he had first started acting strange. He had left to go to lunch over an hour and a half ago and Ursula was beginning to wonder if she might as well just go home for the day when the bell above the door jingled. Gold entered the shop, holding the door open for a young woman who followed behind him. She was a small brunette, wearing a white blouse, short black skirt, and the most outrageous heels Ursula had ever seen on someone that short.

Even if she hadn’t recognized the town’s librarian, the ridiculous grin on Gold’s face would have told her that this was his Miss French.

“Belle, you know my assistant Ursula, of course?” Gold gestured with his hand toward Ursula, who was cleaning one of the glass cabinets. She gave a polite nod to which Belle gave a warm smile in response.

“It’s nice to see you again, Ursula,” she said. “Have you been enjoying that book on Atlantis?”

Ursula winced. “Uh yeah, I’ve been meaning to bring that back.”

Belle waved a hand at her. “Take your time. No one else is waiting for it.” Belle turned to Gold with a shy smile. “So do I get that tour you promised me?”

Ursula coughed. He had promised her a tour? What was next, Ursula thought, was he going to invite the woman back to his house and show her his collection of antique spinning wheels?

She made a good show of continuing to clean the glass, but kept one eye on them as they walked around the shop.

Ursula didn’t miss the little touches that Belle gave her employer. On any other man, they would have been boringly chaste. But with Gold, every touch of his arm was an intimate caress; every grab of his hand to pull him towards another object in the shop was practically a hand job.

“Ursula!”

Ursula almost dropped the glass cleaner. She turned towards her employer, who gestured his hand towards the back of the shop.

“Bring out that antique tea set we got in yesterday. I want to show it to Belle.”

Nodding, Ursula put down her cleaning supplies and fetched the tea set from the backroom, setting it down gently on the counter in front of the other two.  She saw Belle’s eyes grow wide as she looked at it, taking a small teacup into her tiny hands.

Ursula bit back a comment about being careful. This was by far their most expensive acquisition recently and she was pretty sure it would catch the eye of the mayor, who was the only other person in town apart from Gold that could afford the antique.

Her eyes stayed glued to the cup in Belle’s hands until Gold shoed her away with his hand. She went back to cleaning the glass, half-listening to him as he told the librarian about the history of the tea set.

The phone rang and Ursula went to answer it. She knew neither heaven nor hell would stop him once he began of his highly-detailed monologues about one of his pieces, especially not when he had such a willing listener.

Ursula sneered at the couple as she picked up the phone. He was clearly out of his depth when it came to romancing a beautiful woman. And if Belle was interested, which Ursula was beginning to think she might be, than the librarian would be in for a rude awakening when she realized what type of prize she had caught.

Unfortunately for Gold, the phone call concerned the one thing that Ursula knew could always get his attention – business. Their main rival, Killian Jones, was trying to outbid them on an 18th century treasure chest.

Gold begrudgingly took the call and Ursula made her way over to Belle, who was still holding the teacup. She smiled at Ursula and held up the teacup.

“These are beautiful. How much for the set?”

Ursula stared at her and answered plainly. “More than your yearly salary.”

Belle gasped and her grip on the cup slipped. Ursula felt her heart slowly lodge in her throat as she uselessly reached a hand over the counter to try and grab the falling antique. Time seemed to pass in slow motion as they both watched the cup fall to the floor.

Ursula closed her eyes for a brief moment before opening them to see the stricken face of the librarian. Well, at least she wouldn’t have to put up with Gold acting like a lovesick puppy anymore, she realized. Whatever feelings he had for Miss French were sure to evaporate the moment he saw his damaged property.

Belle started making pitiful little squeaks as she knelt down on the ground and picked up the cup, which now had an obvious chip along the rim. Gold rushed over and Ursula saw that the phone was off the hook. He must have left mid-phone call to investigate. Ursula bit back a smirk. The librarian would be lucky if her interest didn’t double on her father’s debt.  

“What happened?” Gold asked, as he reached them.

Belle gestured wordlessly at the chipped cup, her mouth gaping open like a guppy.

“She chipped the cup,” Ursula said. “We’ll never be able to sell it for full price – “

“It’s just a cup,” Gold interrupted, reaching out a hand to pull Belle off the floor.

And that was the moment Ursula knew the librarian had truly tamed her beastly employer.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

It only got worse from there. If Belle wasn’t over visiting the pawnshop, Gold was borrowing some book about antiques at the library. If they weren’t at either of those two places, they were out getting lunch at Granny’s Diner down the street or grabbing an ice cream cone at the parlor around the corner. Ursula was fairly certain that Ingrid had been able to buy her new ice cream truck solely off the revenue she made from Gold’s frequent visits there these days.

The worst part, Ursula discovered, was that he wasn’t even dating Belle. They spent large amounts of their free time together and did date-like things, but Ursula was certain that they had not moved beyond friendship.

As she watched Gold walk Belle back from Granny’s to the library, she rolled her eyes. Maybe if he was actually getting laid, he’d finally stop all this chivalrous nonsense and things could go back to normal.

The more Ursula saw of them together, the more she wanted to pull her hair out in frustration. She could see it. She was pretty sure everyone in the city limits could see it. But for some reason, the two of them were completely blind when it came to one another.

The poor unfortunate souls couldn’t even tell that the other was just as hopelessly in love with them as they were.

Ursula had about reached her limit when a little later that week, she decided to stop by the library and return that book that was embarrassingly overdue. If she had to hear one more of Belle’s kind reminders, she was going to choke on their sweetness.

The library seemed empty and she was halfway to the checkout desk when she heard it: a low grunt coming from the back of the library. It was definitely a male voice. Ursula was about to investigate when she heard the noise repeated, only this time higher in pitch and definitely female.

She froze in her tracks. The noises were muffled but they were definitely coming from the behind the bookshelves, and they were definitely not moans of pain.

They were moans of _pleasure_.

Ursula ran out of the library as fast as her feet would take her. She ran out into the warm daylight, no longer able to keep back her feelings.

“Ewww.”

That was it. She couldn’t take any more of it. The sentimental crap had been one thing, but this was beyond what any loyal employee should have to put up with.

Perhaps it was time she finally took Regina up on that standing offer of employment.

 


End file.
